


Beneath the ashes

by Rae_Saxon



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:28:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22987126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rae_Saxon/pseuds/Rae_Saxon
Summary: The Doctor remembers now. And she needs the Master to know. Needs him to know he's not just a tiny part of a long life, but has been here, from the beginning to the end.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 72
Kudos: 296





	Beneath the ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Well, spoiler warning for the finale, duh! But I had this headscanon I really needed to write down, for my own sanity, so here it is. :)

The memories were running through her mind, faster and faster, more intense with every time she allowed them to play out and all of a sudden, something shattered, a wall so thin, she had never sensed it, never seen it was there, until she was standing in its debris, breathing heavily.

There it all was, every memory, every broken dream, every lived life, her flight, and the realisation that never, ever, had she been anyone but herself.

She held her head, screaming in pain and from a distance, she could hear him chuckle.

Oh, _him_ , always him, standing here, surrounded by his Cybermen army, gloating.

The Doctor looked up, trying to put up a front, but when she met his eyes, she saw something she couldn't see before, was too blind, too caught up to see.

He was hurting.

Something in his eyes made her hearts beat faster, made the pain spread faster in her body and she remembered, here and now... God, she remembered so many things that hadn't been there before, but the one thing that had always been there... was him.

“Does it hurt, Doctor?” he asked and she looked back up, trying to clear her head. “Because it sure hurt me.”

She blinked, once, twice, then, breathlessly, asked, “Why?”

He frowned.

“I told you. A... a part of you...”

“Who cares? We're not what we are made of, we never were. We're what we choose to be, we're our emotions, our decisions, and you are, I promise you, very good at making every single decision I wouldn't do.”

The Master looked taken aback, just for a little second, then let rage spread over his face yet again.

“You think you're special, do you? You think you're...”

She placed a finger on his lips and he froze, mid-sentence, staring at her.

“ _Alone_ is what I felt. Wrong. Lost. Like there was no one in this universe, who could ever possibly understand. Possibly see the struggle in my mind, the craving in my soul. I've felt like that all my life, that's why I left. Gallifrey was never my home. You think I wanted that, you think I wanted to be special? I don't care about special. I don't care about having created the worst and most pompous, dusty race of people this universe has ever seen. I've not forgotten what they did to me. To you.”

The Master frowned and she could see his lips trembling slightly.

“And I haven't forgotten the only times I felt like I didn't have to be alone,” she added, quieter now. “The only person who ever understood me, shared my craving to just get away, to just explore, to find a place out there. Don't think for a second I have. What do you _really_ think, Master? That my life's too long for you now? That you're just one of many, maybe?”

He shook his head, stepped away from her, taking a deep breath, ready to shout, ready to cut her like a knife with another cruelty, no doubt, but oh, she was tired and he would need to listen, for now, he just had to.

“But you're not!” she called out before he could and he froze again. “You're an idiot, an utter idiot and if you just weren't that bloody obsessed with my past, maybe you would've seen, Master. Would've cared to look at your own past. Because I can remember now. I can. And in all my lives, can't you see? There's always been _you_.”

“And they say I'm insane,” the Master replied, trying to roll his eyes, but his face was still frozen on an expression of slight shock and hope, mixed together. “You're ancient, Doctor. I've only been born...”

“But so was I. Or so I thought. Look at it. Think back to it. The little boy pushing me down that cliff. Do you remember? Because i remember. How he stole me out of her lab to play after, how he cut through the bonds that held me, how she hit him, how he hit back when she took her tests too far. I remember him dying, I remember... I remember...”

Oh, she remembered now. That night she had thought she had lost her only friend, sneaked out to hold him one more time, her tears falling onto his lifeless face, until the air was filled with golden sparks, until new life came over him, changing him forever.

“I gave him from my regeneration energy,” she whispered. “In my despair, the only thing I wanted was for my only friend to live. And we made it our secret. Never told her. Decided she should never, ever know.”

“Do you think I care?” he shouted. “Why would I care?”

“Because it was _you_ , stupid. It was you. You were there!”

“Then why don't I remember!”

There were tears in his eyes now, and he seemed to have grown tired to hide them away, to put on another mask. It was almost a relief, just seeing him allowing feelings again. He had grown so numb, had fought them so hard, in his attempt not to be hurt again.

“I don't know. I don't know what happened after they...” She took a deep breath, these memories, painful memories, running through her now. “We ran away together. On the run from the Division, you and me. We got married.” A short, little smile lit up her face. “Proper Earth married. You helped me hide, used a chameleon arch. I was there.” She banged her hand against the forehead, shaking her head with a grin. “I was there, stupid old me, and i met you and I met my past self and I.... I did once again not realise. But that was _you_.”

He looked at her, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You're just talking to stall time. To stop me from sending out my armies.”

“Do you really think that?” she asked, her voice merely a whisper now. “Don't you remember what we were for each other?” She stepped closer to him again, shaking her head softly, as she took his face between her hands, watching him flinch, but he didn't move away. “Listen to me, just one more time. If you still want to conquer the universe with these....” She shuddered “these things, then what's me talking going to do?”

He snorted.

“Please. You can end civilisations just by talking them into doing it for you.”

The Doctor grinned.

“Could never talk you into anything, though. Could barely make you skip classes.”

“You always made me skip classes,” the replied, his voice a low growl. “And you could talk me into _anything_.”

“So I could. Listen to me then. That's all I ask. Just listen.”

He took a deep breath, then brought out through gritted teeth, “Then talk.”

“These pictures you showed me. I don't... I don't remember everything. They erased my memory... forced me into a new start, without... without all these... I don't remember why. I remember even how. But this is the last memory I have before... before the childhood I thought had been my first.”

“So?” he asked, hands balled to fists.

“You tried to protect me,” she breathed. “You were there and you fought them and you screamed and then you... you looked at me and I could see it all on your face...”

“Fine,” he replied with a an eye-roll. “Say I play along. What was on my face then, Doctor?”

“I'd forgotten you,” she replied, smiling sadly. “Along with everything else. And you couldn't bear it.”

He pressed his lips together, not saying a word, but she could see him thinking, see him trying to remember like she did now. Trying to break through.

“They dragged me away. Everything's fuzzy, after that thing they did to my head, it still is. I dreamed of it, sometimes, I remember that now. You were shouting at me, shouting that you'd find me again and... well, you did, didn't you?”

They looked at each other and she could see it in his eyes, see that he believed it. She could also see that he would never admit it, because that involved admitting to care, admitting to have cared so much he had forced himself back into a child, forced his own memories out of his head.

They both turned back towards the Matrix at the same time, just looking at it sending shudders over both their bodies.

“I don't... want to...” he muttered and she sighed.

“Well, neither did I. But it wasn't all bad.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“We had a beach wedding.”

And with one glorious, wonderful, so long hoped for break of the darkness on his face, he broke out into hoarse laughter, and it sounded less insane, more genuine this time.

The Doctor grinned, the sound making her hearts beat faster in wild hope.

“I don't even like beaches.”

“Yeah you did!”

“I did not. I always get sand everywhere. I told you, it's...”

He stopped, shock spreading on his face.

“You did tell me,” she whispered. “You said you'd only do this here because I liked this beach and because you to marry me on every other planet in the galaxy, each of them without sand.”

He frowned, his gaze stuck on the ground as he thought.

“It hurts,” he finally brought out, still looking to the floor. “Loving you, Doctor, it bloody hurts.”

She let her fingers go to the back of his head, fingertips running gently through his hair, over his sensitive skin, raising his chin with the other.

“Loving you isn't exactly a picnic either, you know?”

His eyes were so full of despair, tears still glittering and she sighed.

“Listen, Master. You're scared. It hurt and you're scared of ever, ever letting something get to you enough to hurt like that again. I get it. I've been there. Shut myself away to protect myself. But it doesn't work that way. All this rage, all the cruelty you use to keep it away from you... it's not going to be enough. It'll come back to you. It always does. Worse than it's been before.”

“I don't know who I'd be,” he whispered, so fast that she could tell he had wanted to tell her about it far sooner. “I don't know what's left of me if I let go of the rage. It burnt everything good away, I can't... I can't be anything else, I don't know how, Doctor.”

“Look around, idiot, look at Gallifrey.”

He flinched and she could tell he took it as a jab, another reminder of what he had done, but she shook her head gently.

“It's covered in ashes,” she continued quickly. “And for as long as we leave it that way, nothing new will be able to grow. Yes, we can let the planet stay dead forever. Or we start believing that something good can grow underneath these ashes.”

She rested a hand onto his chest, right between his hearts.

“You're a lot more than your rage. You've always been. You've been too afraid to let yourself feel, and it's alright, I understand. We've gone through a lot, you and me. But let something grow, Master. I.... “ She took a deep breath. “I'll help you, if you let me.”

He closed his eyes, then opened them again, a tortured expression on his face.

“Did you just metaphor me... with the planet I destroyed?”

The Doctor fought a little laugh. “I had to improvise.”

“You're an idiot.”

“You knew that already.”

The Master sighed. “I did.”

“Married me anyway.”

“Allegedly. Still need to see that magical beach you pinned me down on, to be really sure.”

“Actually, you did all the pinning that night.”

The Master took a second to get it, then let out a snorting laugh.

“That does sound like me.”

“See?” the Doctor grinned, letting her hands fall to take his. “The one constant in all my lives.”

He blinked away tears, trying to fight the emotions taking over, but finally, finally, she could see them spreading on his face, replacing the rage and anger, the hate and the ever same cruel grins of sinister glee, with warmth, with despair, with _emotion_.

“I'm... not sure I can trust you,” he finally whispered. “You've left me... before...”

“I did,” she sighed. “I know. But here's something you need to understand. Me leaving, it has never been about you, it has never been you fault. That was me, looking for something I thought was out there, that was me looking for the person I used to be. I knew there was something... something missing and you... just gave it back to me.”

“So this... this is real? Us?” there was hope in his eyes and she could see him trying to fight it and she would be having none of it. Not hope, never hope, never the most beautiful, powerful of emotions. She leaned forwards, kissing his lips softly, smiling as his eyes widened.

“It's real. So real, we found each other and fell in love twice. Who else can say that?”

“I can make a list,” the Master finally mumbled as he led her out by her hand.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“Of planets without sand.”

A little smirk played around the corners of her mouth.

“You want to marry me?”

He gave her a nervous side glance. “Technically, we're already married.”

“You believe me, then? Don't you want to check the Matrix? See if you find proof?”

He took a deep breath and she could see the little battle on his face.

“No, I... I believe you.”

“Okay.”

They looked at each other, on the corridor, both shaky, hesitant smiles spreading on their faces. A fresh start. And they had found each other again. Suddenly, they both seemed to feel giddy like little kids, ready to run through those grasses again. But the grasses were still covered in ashes, reminding her that there was still work to do.

Behind them, a line of Cybermen was walking out of the chamber, like obedient puppies, looking a little lost.

“Oh,” the Master muttered. “Gotta maybe get rid of them first.”


End file.
